


A Beginning

by soubriquet



Series: What I Gave [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Amnesia, M/M, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-15
Updated: 2012-03-15
Packaged: 2017-11-02 00:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soubriquet/pseuds/soubriquet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David's POV. Sometimes Constantine doesn't knowingly give.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Beginning

They leave him in a street, somewhere in an english-speaking country, he's not sure. He's still _lucid_ and _untamed,_ fighting the wooziness that threatens to take him over; _has,_ in the past, already has. So when he's approached by a woman in the road and asked his name, he doesn't answer. Doesn't remember. The last few (hours? days? weeks?) are nothing but a blur of pain, half-forgotten faces, sleep. He supposes that would be usual if he wasn't out here without a memory, but just as he grasps that thought to find out what it means, it slips.

He has his back against a door and the cuffs of his jeans ruck up on stone steps leading down to the sidewalk. Only five. He's counted. His head still swims and sends him reeling whenever he dares to move it, so staying still has become his objective. Stay still enough, even society won't notice you. 

It's not long until it does, though, of course, and he wouldn't have bet money on crawling into the wall if he had any at all. The man crouches down, smiles, offers cash and might even say _food_ or _water,_ he isn't sure; he forgets. The smile is all teeth, but he accepts. Acquiesces as the man semi-drags him from his hiding spot, balance careening in all sorts of different directions, awkwardly into the car, and then off.

In the back seat, he pulls his feet up onto the seat and curls his hands around his knees. The man looks at him in the rearview mirror, and says nothing.

He is a nameless thing and can't quite communicate that to the man when he undresses, while he stays on the edge of the bed, sitting, but not quite steady. It's over far too quickly, and his throat constricts when he feels the tension of the man's stomach beneath his hands, the rough hair on the back of his arm, even the sounds he makes and the silence when he comes. His breath is wrong, though, and so is this room. It is all wrong, wrong, wrong, and the man has dark hair, he thinks, that's also wrong.

He clings onto those when all he's handed are a dozen dollar bills. It was worth it, he tells himself, he knows what is _wrong_ now, but he doesn't quite trust it, that feeling. After he looks at the man, he earns another twenty. Looking, he supposes, is fine. The walk back doesn't happen. He'll stay here from now on, closer to food. Whatever he tastes at the fast-food joint is heaven, whatever he drinks is divine. He will survive.

Walking out back onto the street is harder, but he does it, nevertheless.

The past is where he came from but he can't - quite - get around the fact that there's something he's supposed to remember, past the knowledge of what cars are and how to eat. He doesn't even have a name.

The next man guesses; maybe knows. He is taller, but crouches when the man shoves his back against the wall, and as soon as he's shorter he's rewarded. 

It becomes a ritual. He lives with it.

When the day comes that a bus passes and he gets on it, he watches the city fade with all the reminiscence of a stone. He remembers it, and yet here he chooses to forget; to put those buildings and cracks between the walls to the back of his mind, and focus on the chill of the air, the winding rain against the windowpane. 

He gets off at a town he doesn't know.


End file.
